Curry, John A. Two and Out

This thoughtful and well-written crime novel will leave you scratching your head as you flip pages towards the unpredictable ending. Fans of Curry's first effort--Loyalty may be disappointed that this book is not the sequel (Mr. Curry is said to be working on that!) to that saga of street crime and the growth of the New England Irish mob.

And just like in Loyalty, Curry does an able job of fleshing out the characters so that they scheme and breathe. This tale of two robberies that will make an unknown crew rich enough to quit and disappear is richly detailed and obviously well-researched. The characters are sympathetic and annoying in turn, and their lives of quiet desperation pulse with their individual stories so that it is understandable why each has turned to a two-shot deal of the fast-buck crime.

Curry's real strength comes in the description of eastern Massachusetts locations--the reader's ability to picture the enormous parking lot adjacent to Hilltop in Saugus or the people walking around Lake Quannipowitt in Wakefield rings true. As familiar as this reviewer is with the locales mentioned my sense is that a stranger would also grasp the "local" color that Curry provides.

The plot is not entirely predictable and moves along at a pace that provides a few surprising turns if not outright twists. I questioned whether the author was stereotyping his Mafia bad guys or just nailing them--but to Curry's credit they felt like they belonged in the real-life saga of Dick Lehr's Black Mass. Mike Fallon, the FBI man entrenched in sorrow is just ripe for a sequel of his own. How about Mike Fallon meets Jack Kelly?

Overall, if reading a well-crafted crime novel is a pleasure for you, then this novel is one you will pick up and recommend to others. If you usually don't like this kind of book, then it is still worth reading for the true Bostonians, North Shore dwellers, and the delicious descriptions of the places they inhabit that Curry provides. The humor is subtle, especially as the armed robbers chide each other in their masks of 2000 Presidential candidates: Bush, Cheney, Gore and Lieberman. A device that works beautifully both for the bandits and the author.

Leane M. Ellis, February 20,2002.